Amon looked up, round faced and open eyed. He licked a corner of his mouth, stuttered. He lifted one arm, placed a finger in his mouth as though trying to dislodge an elephant. He shuddered, gurgled, and went catatonic, pitching forward to the deck where he lay like a man fallen from a tall building. Lamp yelled, shrieked, shrieked, jumped upright as if pierced by a sharp iron weapon. Howard leapt from his retreat in the cubicle of the office, and Wysczknowski, as though thankful, tucked the pack of cards in his shirt pocket. Amon’s eyes rolled back, the rigidity of catatonia disappeared and Amon’s left arm thumped, flailed. His legs kicked. His body heaved and shuddered and flopped.
“Clear his tongue. Get a spoon. Don’t put your hand in there.”
“He’s having fits.”
“I think he’s having epilepsy. A guy at the Base had it once.”
Brace ran toward the galley, was caught by an original movement from Adrian, banged his shoulder on the coffee urn. He regained his balance, achieved the galley, and returned with a long wooden spoon. He passed it to Howard, then dropped to his knees in an effort to grab Amon’s kicking, drumming legs. “Hold his head,” Howard told Wysczknowski. “Don’t let him kick you,” he said to Brace. “This kid is stronger than he looks.”
Lamp stood like a drooping distress signal. He ran his hands through his red-blond hair, looked at Amon, looked at Brace. Lamp was like a man doing laborious sums and wishing for an adding machine. He arrived at a total, seemed stunned, rechecked his figures.
“Out,” he said to Brace. “Get off of this messdeck.”
“What?”
“Get off of my messdeck. You’re causing this.” The hysteria that trembled in Lamp’s voice seemed to free him. He reached for Brace, who was still attempting to capture Amon’s banging legs. He caught Brace’s collar, pulled him backwardly erect. Brace attempted to turn, was thrown off balance by the corkscrew motion of the ship. He fell backward, bounced against a bulkhead, came slowly to his feet and stood bewildered. Lamp threw his huge body across Amon’s legs, took a knee in the belly, struggled.
“Out,” Lamp gasped.
“Take off,” Howard said to Brace. “We’ll get it figured later.”
Brace stood as if testing catatonia of his own. He moved vaguely. He flushed with guilt or embarrassment, began to leave, stopped. He turned back, a man proven guilty by accusation. “Let’s get it figured now,” he said. “Let’s get it figured right now, cook.” He began to move forward, one hand clutching, one hand clenched. The huge, heavy-moving body of Lamp rose and fell with Amon’s kicking.
“Out,” said Wysczknowski. “I don’t know what’s going on, but that’s an order, chum, that ain’t just good advice.”
Brace stood shocked, defeated. He turned to leave, turned back; more rebellious than the Old Testament Gideon, equally confused. His mouth trembled with a movement of jaw, a shudder of lips.
“You want to know how dumb I am,” he said. “I thought this ship was different, that’s how dumb I am. This place is just like every other place.” He bounded away, up the ladder, bouncing in bruising crashes against bulkheads like a man selected for the pleasure of a demon.
“A Punch and Judy show,” Howard told Wilson. “Things got settled down, but Amon still won’t cross the fiddley.”
“They talking to each other?”
“They’re not even seeing each other. Dane won’t let Brace on the messdeck. The kid is eating in the crew’s compartment. Amon is sleeping in the galley.”
“That can’t last.”
“No,” Howard said. “We’ll see what a doctor has to say about Amon.”
“It’s that bumboat,” Wilson said mournfully. “Ever since we pulled it in.”
Howard, having forgotten Hester C. as completely as he had forgotten his unknown father, gazed at the empty end of the pier like a voyager to far lands getting reacquainted with his hometown. He looked toward the channel, shook his head.
“I was belowdeck with that flyer when we came in.”
“It got loose during the storm,” Wilson told him. “It’s over there on them mudflats just waitin’ and watchin’ us. It’s going to be sitting on those mudflats forever.”
Chapter 12
Steaming through September, Adrian resembled a toy ship playing at rescue. It towed the Ann, the Emerald, the Dolphin—two trawlers and a giddy-looking yacht that was rigged (as Fallon remarked) like a Paris lady’s toilet. The tows were dull, short and routine. They were so easy that Levere occasionally left the bridge for a one-eyed nap. Seas ran nearly mellow. Winds retreated north as if to bide their time. Old men knit gear, eyed the north with suspicion, looked at the gray and motionless sea, while young men were lulled. The lousy cutter Able, of New Bedford, went aground on a sandbar off Martha’s Vineyard and cleaned some barnacles from its hull. It was freed by the tide and a tow from an 83 boat. Men shook their heads as the tale spread through the fleet. They praised the good luck that found them only on the North Atlantic, and not on the cutter Able.
“Cutter Un-Able,” Glass said. “Sell it to the Mexican navy.”
“I don’t want to hear,” Lamp told him. “I got enough to think about.”
Hester C. lay on the mudflats like a small black and gray splash of fear, or a low grade curse. A third yellow raft that was deflated and broken and flogged and thrown by the tide, came ashore near Kennebunkport. Levere received two letters. One was written by an Air Force squadron commander. The other was written by a widow. Levere wrote answers to the letters from the privacy of the wardroom.
Cutter Aaron, of Boston, towed a tugboat—which (as the redheaded Rodgers pointed out) was like letting a barmaid take the pope on a guided tour—while Snow said: “Lad, if you crack wise about my last ship, I must adjust you in a way that will make you forever innocent to barmaids.”
Adrian was relieved from standby for a week. Men went ashore. They saw and smelled garlicky sailors from a French destroyer. The sailors wore red-trimmed hats, and they straddled bar stools with cocky and easy arrogance. They made wonderful conquests among the bar girls. Adrian’s crew was too unjoyful to fight.
The Cape Cod Canal bridge stuck halfway up or halfway down. Rumor said that it looked like something—that when you saw it—you wanted to kick a field goal. Aboard an Italian freighter, a deckhand hanged himself from a steering cable. From northward came radio gossip about the early formation of ice.
Amon disappeared shoreward, to walk (when Lamp visited him) white-robed and in a bemused state along the polished floors of the Marine hospital.
“He knew me,” Lamp reported. “I think he’s going to be just fine.”
After a week, a memorandum arrived. Amon had epilepsy. After a second week, Amon’s orders arrived. He disappeared toward the interminable hospital circuit of Boston. Lamp, in mourning, packed Amon’s gear for transit to the hospital. Lamp would accept no help. He would allow no one to enter the privacy of his grief. Men passed silently by him as he stood in the crew’s compartment and rolled Amon’s clothing into tidy bundles. Lamp occasionally untied a roll, then rolled it over and over again until he was satisfied that it was perfect. His small head, which was always disproportionate to his huge frame, now seemed of normal size as he slumped deeper and deeper into his clothing. He whispered to himself, or to Amon—or perhaps he prayed. The silent, passing men looked at each other, shook their heads, then climbed to the main deck and gave low and surprised whistles.